March 2026 Gleanings
Torch of Light, Lava Tube winners announced
Calling all BIPC members! You can get involved by joining committees to help us plan events, offering feedback and, of course, helping us sponsor scholarships for journalism and communications students. We're continuing our programs to promote openness in government and grow new journalists to keep us informed.
This issue, as we start Sunshine Week, reveals the winners of our annual Torch of Light and Lava Tube awards. You heard it here first!
What's going on? We'd like more BIPC member highlights. We'd like to include more of you! Please send a blurb and photo to info@bigislandpressclub.org
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Important deadlines:
Scholarship application deadline April 30
https://forms.gle/op1VrdytXhMrVAKQ9
Our monthly board meetings are continuing at 9 a.m. the first Saturday of every month via Zoom, and all BIPC members can attend our next one at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 4, by using this link: https://zoom.us/j/93755775071 . Questions? Contact info@bigislandpressclub.org
Big Island Press Club announces annual Torch of Light and Lava Tube awards for 2025
Recktenwald awarded meritorious Torch of Light award; Legislator X earns Lava Tube dishonor
The Big Island Press Club awards its annual meritorious Torch of Light Award to Mark Recktenwald, who served as the chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court from 2010 to 2025. BIPC also awards its Lava Tube dishonor to Legislator X, the elected official caught on tape accepting a paper bag containing $35,000, according to federal court records. The Torch of Light award is given to an individual or entity for illuminating the public’s right to know, while the Lava Tube dishonor is given for a lack of communication and keeping the public in the dark.
As it has for past 28 years, the 59-year-old press club announces the awards yearly on March 16, Freedom of Information Day, the birthday of James Madison, who was widely regarded as the father of the U.S. Constitution and the leading advocate for openness in government among our founders.
The Big Island Press Club will hold a luncheon this fall to present the awards and honor Recktenwald. Tickets to attend this event will be available about a month beforehand to both club members and non-members at bigislandpressclub.org.
Retired Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald
The Big Island Press Club awards its annual meritorious Torch of Light Award to Mark Recktenwald, who served as the chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court from 2010 to 2025.
Recktenwald leaves an enduring legacy of public service that transformed the Judiciary, bringing the court to the people.
Under his watch, Hawaii state courts rolled out electronic filing and implemented remote proceedings statewide. More cameras came into the courtroom and access to court documents was simplified.
Recktenwald, a former UPI reporter stationed in Honolulu, understands the importance of a free press and its role in democracy. He addressed BIPC scholarship winners in a Zoom session during the pandemic, stressing the importance of their work in maintaining a free society.
Since his mandatory retirement at age 70, Rectenwald has joined the Alliance of Former Chief Justices, a nonpartisan initiative launched in December 2025 by Keep Our Republic to defend judicial independence, the rule of law and the constitutional balance. The group engages in public education, working with legal, media, and community organizations to support a fair, impartial judiciary.
Recktenwald was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on September 14, 2010, and was retained for a second term beginning September 14, 2020. He joined the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice on May 11, 2009 and previously served as Chief Judge of the Intermediate Court of Appeals beginning in April 2007.
The iconic torch award will be presented to Recktenwald at BIPC’s annual meeting this fall.
Legislator X
The Big Island Press Club awards the 2025 Lava Tube to Legislator X. This person, still unknown after federal records say they were recorded by a wired FBI informant accepting $35,000 in a paper bag from an also unnamed person, has yet to come forward. Nor, four years later, have the two investigative agencies -- federal and state -- been forthcoming about the details of this investigation.
There's a lot we don't know about this case. And that's the whole point. Time to solve this bribery case is short and we still don't know. There's just a year before the statute of limitations runs out in 2027.
What we do know, from media reports and the rare unredacted federal court records that have been unsealed is this: Ty Cullen, former legislator and vice chairman of the powerful House Finance Committee, pleaded guilty and agreed to be a government informant in a bribery case that sent him and another sitting legislator (former Sen. J. Kalani English) to federal prison. Both have already served their sentences and been released.
Cullen's recorded actions kept investigators investigating. And they still are. In the midst of it, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke disclosed that she had taken campaign checks -- but not in a paper bag -- from an associate of Cullen's during a dinner with Cullen and the contributor. Luke, who was House Finance Committee chairwoman at the time and running for higher office, recently disclosed the checks that weren’t on her 2022 campaign finance report until the lapse was pointed out by Civil Beat, whose relentless coverage has spurred action and provided most of the few details we know.
“Ethical -- and perhaps legal -- breaches aren't usually a subject of the Big Island Press Club's Lava Tube award. But a lack of transparency is. Thus Legislator X, who we still can't identify, is the winner of this year's Lava Tube award,” said BIPC Board member Nancy Cook Lauer. “Kudos to Civil Beat for keeping the pressure on.”
Royelen Lee Boykie:
One Year of Arguing With AI
I didn't arrive at the Big Island Press Club as a credentialed journalist. I wandered in, got charmed, and somehow ended up on the board for five years, during which the BIPC became, for me, Hawai‘i's best accidental continuing education program in journalism. I got to work alongside seasoned professionals and journalism students who were just finding their footing. I learned from all of them.
My first exposure to actual journalism came while working at AOL in the early 2000s, including a stretch inside a real newsroom. It was an unusual moment in media — the industry was experimenting with new tools, new formats, and new ways of understanding what the public wanted to know. That environment left me comfortable with experimentation.
Which led me to spend the past year immersed in a personal inquiry into artificial intelligence.
After considerable testing, what I’ve learned is that AI is a useful tool that’s changing rapidly and requires significant handling to produce results better than what I would generate on my own. The pushback matters. I consistently ask it to verify, clarify, or explain its reasoning. Accuracy depends on follow-up questions, requests for specifics, explanations, and citations. That back-and-forth is critical, and I suspect you’ll recognize it as part of your own journalistic practice.
That dynamic is now being debated throughout the profession. A recent piece by Associated Press media writer David Bauder, published through the First Amendment Center, describes news organizations racing to experiment with AI while still grappling with questions of governance, disclosure, and where human judgment fits in. The answers are still evolving. The Bauder article, in fact, was flagged by the same kind of tool — delivered by an AI in my daily news briefing.
From my vantage point on the edge of journalism, AI doesn’t replace journalism. AI can produce content frighteningly fast. Humans are still indispensable to getting it right. At least for now…
Which brings me to one final question.
After reading this, does your journalistic skepticism make you wonder whether this article was written by AI?
It was. Partly. Not one, but two large language models helped draft this piece. I directed it, pushed back on it, cut what wasn’t true, and kept what was. The judgment was mine. I made it authentic.
2026 Big Island Press Club Board
Please feel free to contact any board members with your suggestions, or if you wish to volunteer!
President: Maya-Lin Green, education and communications team member, Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center <maya-lin@bigislandpressclub.org>
Vice President: Kevin Dayton, Civil Beat reporter, formerly with Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaii Tribune-Herald. <kdayton@civilbeat.org>
Secretary: John Burnett, journalist, Tribune-Herald <jburnett@hawaiitribuneherald.com>
Treasurer: Nancy Cook Lauer, retired journalist, UHH student publications advisor, blogger www.allhawaiinews.com <nclauer@gmail.com>
Immediate Past President: Tiffany Edwards Hunt, former journalist, middle school teacher <newswoman@mac.com><
Director: Patsy Iwasaki, professor, University of Hawaii-Hilo
<piwasaki@hawaii.edu>
Director: John Atwell, former CIA Senior Operations Officer, University of Hawaii-Hilo instructor, columnist, editor <jno.p.atwell@gmail.com>
Director: Peter Serafin. Journalist/writer/broadcaster at Golden Angel Studio. Former editor of Hawaii Island Journal. <peter@goldenangel.org>
Director: Ross Wilson, PR, Current Events rossw@current-events.com
Director Emeritus: Robert Duerr, filmmaker and journalist, Hawaii Fishing News <surf77@me.com>
Board Adjunct: Laila Moiré-Selvage: Founder/Manager at Coconut City Creative, Media Director at Action For Nature laila@bigislandpressclub.org>
